Martin Han, G12, RDF International School

Staple foods usually make up the majority of our caloric intake. In China, this usually means wheat, rice and other grains. The Chinese cooking style for staple foods is various, from the most ordinary steamed rice to mouth-watering rice cakes. And no matter how many dishes and courses are served at a banquet, the staple will always appear on our table.

In China about 2,000 years ago, staple foods usually referred to rice, millet and wheat. Today, the most consumed staples in China are rice, wheat and corn. China has changed drastically over the past years. This allows the Chinese people living in different regions to enjoy various foods.

It is a Chinese custom to eat noodles on birthdays. The Chinese call it longevity noodles. Why do Chinese people eat noodles for their birthdays? Well, noodles are very long and thin, and its Chinese pronunciation is the same as for the word “longevity.” People in Lanzhou begin their mornings with a bowl of beef ramen. This city with more than 1,000 ramen restaurants consumes more than 1 million bowls of ramen every day. Noodles is the king of staple foods in the eyes of the Lanzhou people.

Almost all Chinese people know that northerners like wheat, while southerners cannot do without rice.

Located in the Taihu Lake Basin, Zhejiang Province has the oldest rice paddies in China. For a long time, Zhejiang has been the main production base of rice in the south. The people of Jiaxing, a city in Zhejiang, are known for their exquisite lifestyle, and start their day with rice cakes.

Jiaxing people traditionally make rice cakes to celebrate the Chinese New Year. In the past, Jiaxing families made hundreds of kilograms of rice cakes before the festival. The cake is made of one very simple ingredient: rice. Rice is soaked, ground, steamed, and kneaded, until it turns into a long white, tender strip. The strip is cut into bite-sized pieces of rice cakes. The rice cakes can be fried, boiled in soup and cooked with other ingredients.

The Spring Festival is a family holiday for the Chinese. Children return to their parents, husbands back to their wives. Dumplings are the most important food for this special occasion. On Spring Festival Eve, eating dumplings together signifies reunion. Even today, when many foods are produced and packaged on the assembly line, people still make their own dumplings year after year. There is nothing more important to the Chinese people than to cook and eat with their families.

This tradition tells a wonderful story of this Chinese staple food.